The Actual Chinese Wedding

Since moving to Korea, Kim and I have had our fair share of unique experiences but our past trip to China for SanKwun's wedding was by far our biggest "You're a bit far East" moment. The events I am about to describe are based on our actual experiences and have not been fabricated in any way. To support these claims, we have provided photo evidence. In all seriousness, while the wackiness of the day made us laugh (a lot) the trip was still extremely special and we feel lucky to have been there to share the day with SanKwun & ChunPing.

Let's get started.

The day started off pretty normal. The wedding started at 10:00AM. So after a quick breakfast, Kim and I headed back to our rooms to get ready. We were told to meet in front of the hotel at 9:45AM. During breakfast I asked SanKwun what a Chinese wedding ceremony is like and he told me that he did not know and was not sure what would be happening throughout the day.

In Kim's last post, she showed the billboard sized picture of SanKwun and ChunPing. A little strange, right? But not half as strange as walking out to see this as we came through the front doors of the hotel.

A red carpet AND a marching band. At this point we knew without a doubt that this was going to be an awesome day. And it continued to get better and better as we discovered that ChunPing's cousin, a wedding planner who was responsible for planning most of the wedding, spared no expense for this momentous day.

I heard that there might be fireworks at the wedding so I was pretty stoked, especially when we noticed these cannons lined up 8 in a row on each side the the red carpet.

There were also large inflatables everywhere. The one below was Kim's favorite.

Lined up in front of the hotel, was a fleet of Mercedes and 2 stretched limos.

When we asked what they were going to be used for, we were informed that

SanKwun, his friends and family needed to go to ChunPing's house and pick her up.

Well, that makes sense.

Before we got in the cars to begin the 3KM trip down the street to pick

up the lovely bride, ChunPing's little brother took me aside to show me his

arsenal of fireworks that he had stashed in his car. His plan was to was to

lead the motorcade while his cousin sat in the back lighting these fireworks

and throwing them into the street.

Well, I guess that also makes sense.

As we made our way through town, the camera zoomed around in the convertible capturing every moment.

I was still a little curious as to how they were planning on using the marching band. Once we arrived it finally all became clear. The marching band would lead SanKwun through the courtyard and up to ChunPing's front door, setting off every car alarm along the way. SanKwun was just as perplexed as we were, if not more.

Arriving at the apartment, we found ChunPing and some 3o+ members of her family waiting for the groom. There were some rituals performed, such as knocking on her bedroom door and asking her to marry him. Then they received the parents permission by bowing.

Finally, we got back on the rode for a 30 minute parade through the rest of the town.

The girls in the picture below are not ChunPing's friends, but instead hired assistants to help her throughout the day. We are still not sure why they were wearing angel wings.

The bride and groom made their way down the red carpet amid fireworks, confetti, balloons and other various explosions. Our Korean teacher would later explain to us that every Chinese wedding has explosions and loud sounds to ward off evil spirits.

We made our way into the ceremony/reception hall which seemed fairly normal except for this large fluorescent-lit walkway, complete with gold fish filled columns.

Arousing the curiosity of the guests as they entered and made their way to their seats was a rock-n-roll all-girls violin band decked out in their classiest short skirts and high heels.

After a surprisingly impressive 10 minute performance by the violinists, ChunPing and SanKwun made their way onto the stage. That's when the smoke machines also came out.

Obviously, the ceremony was in Chinese but I think that I can confidently say that there was not any religious significance behind any of it. They did play some romantic love songs like, "When a Man Loves a Women" to highlight the important moments. Later, the parents were introduced and told to come up on the stage. As they came up the walkway, the DJ played the Star Wars theme song.

The fathers then proceeded to each give a speech. Mr. Kim had his translated into Chinese by an interpreter.

After that, the angelic assistants made another appearance when they presented the bride and groom with this gift. No was ever able to explain what this was for.

When the ceremony was finished the newly married couple made their way back down the walkway with a hand full of paper airplanes that they tossed out to the crowd.

Notice the camera crane that filmed the whole event. That was actually pretty cool.

The meal was composed of various Chinese meat and vegetable dishes. There was a bottle of Chinese liquor on every table as well.

While we were eating, the waitresses passed out plates of cigarettes to everyone. I thought smoking was bad in Korea, but they literally smoke everywhere in China. At our table, there was an ash tray for every two people.

ChunPing and SanKwun went around to all of the tables while we were eating and took a shot with each person. ChunPing took shots with SanKwun's guest and vice versa. Since we were in China, SunKwun got the short end of the stick.

All jokes aside, we enjoyed the entire day. It was probably one of the most entertaining weddings I have ever been too. Coincidentally, my best friend, Joe, got married the following week. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend but from what I hear, it was a blast too. (Although as far as I know, there were no angels, fireworks, or inflatables...)

China Wedding Part 1

Okay, I'm finally getting around to posting about the China wedding. Only a month late, right?

I'm going to break it into parts because there's just so much to talk about.

Mark and I arrived in China on Thursday. The wedding was held in ChungPing's fairly small hometown. (I've asked hundreds of times, but can never remember the name. Sorry.) We were met at the airport by ChungPing's sisters, and brought to the hotel. It was really nice, and also happened to be where the wedding would take place.

So then, we went out with ChungPing's family, SangKwun, and some others to a Chinese hot pot dinner. We ate it about 4 or 5 times while we were there, and it never got old. Every hot pot restaurant we went to had a big revolving center for all the food. Then we each had our own individual hot pots. And the sesame sauce with cilantro... amazing.

Not surprisingly, Mark also dived right into the Chinese liquor. This little bottle is cheap (like $1.50) but the liquor is potent. As in, I took one sip and could feel my mouth and throat burning. So Mark drank the entire bottle one-shot by one-shot.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and spent some time drinking beer with SangKwun and a couple of his friends.

The next day was when things got a little weird. Birth Father was due to arrive later that day, so we met a few of his work colleagues for lunch. After lunch, they told us that they wanted to go to the Shaolin Temple, which was the birthplace of Kung Fu. Awesome, we were in.

But then, after going out and talking to various drivers, we found out that the temple was too far. So the driver offered to take us somewhere nearby.

He drove us to a place and rapped on the gate where we were greeted by a one-armed man. Then, we were led to a run-down looking building with pictures of animals on the outside. So, we paid the entrance fee and went in. Walking through these dingy, run-down rooms it became apparent that we were in a zoo. But there really weren't any animals, only a huge tortoise in a small aquarium. But then we got outside and were handed a huge block of animal food and saw this.

Yep, that would be a huge bear in a very tiny cage. It was actually pretty sad since it literally had no room to walk around and it was just like a concrete box.

After listening to the bear roar and attempting to feed it, we were directed outside to look at various fenced in areas with animals listed, but no animals. This place was making the St. Louis zoo look like animal paradise!

As we were walking around, we were kind of confused because this park was really crowded and there were quite a few people walking around. Surely they weren't all here to see this "zoo"?!?!

We walked up the hill and saw another run-down area with tons of men standing around outside. There were also a surprising number of dogs hanging out... all of a sudden, Mark leaned over to me and said, "I think this is a dog fight." Excuse me?!?!? [In case any of you wanted to see what a Chinese dog fight looked like, I apologize because at this point I completely forgot I was carrying a camera and didn't take any pictures.]

So in our broken Korean, we confirmed with Birth Father's colleagues that this was, indeed, a dog fight. One of his colleagues (holding his year old son) wanted to get closer to the action. We resisted, so we all continued walking up the hill. But then we found ourselves at a dead end behind the dog fighting building. The guy (still holding his son) walked right into the building and motioned for us to follow. Um, scariest place I've ever been in my life. Apparently this is where they keep the dogs before/after they fight. So as we walked through this darkened dungeon, pit bulls chained in various rooms lunged, snarled, and snapped at us. Horrible. I refused to watch an actual fight, so after we made it through that place, we headed out.

After we got back to the hotel, we met Birth Father, where he had a good laugh about our afternoon's "sight-seeing." What a weird day.

Later that evening we went to dinner. Mark and I had to laugh because the menu looked like this, but we were asked multiple times if we'd like to order.

Here's a cute one of Birth Father and I at dinner.

Birth Father was really cute with his colleague's son. He was constantly trying to play with him and carried him on the walk home. Cute.

After dinner, we all headed to the noraebang. Here's the group.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by this sign in front of the hotel. Yes, that would be a billboard size picture of SangKwun and ChunPing.

To get an idea of scale, here's a shot of the front of the hotel with the sign lit up to the right. It was huge!

After seeing this huge billboard, we could only wonder what was in store for the wedding the next day... The wedding day will be my next blog post. Coming soon...

THAT'S a wedding gift!

One of my favorite things about studying (besides learning another language and being able to talk to my birth family, yada yada yada) is the opportunity to learn first-hand about other cultures from my classmates.

This semester it's cool because our increased ability to speak with our classmates allows us to have really amazing conversations. More and more, our teachers will introduce how things are done in Korea and then ask us to share how things are done in our respective countries.

For example, today we were talking about wedding gifts. In Korea, people normally give money. To an acquaintance you are expected to give the equivalent of $30. And for a good friend, about $50. And for a best friend or family member, you can give more if you wish.

In Japan, money is also the most commonly given gift. But here's where it gets crazy... an acquaintance should get about $300.... and a good friend? How about $1,000+!?!?! Talk about breaking into a cold sweat when a wedding invitation arrives in your mailbox!!! Gak!

Hanboks

I can't remember how much information I've posted about Emily and SangKwun's wedding. So, at the risk of being repetitive, I'm going to share it again. SangKwun and Emily will have their Korean wedding ceremony on October 3rd at the Sheraton Walter Hill. Then on they will have their Chinese wedding in Emily's hometown (a little outside Beijing) on October 16th. And we're going to get to attend both weddings. SO exciting!

For the Korean wedding, Mark and I are both going to be wearing hanboks (traditional Korean clothing). So last week we went with Emily and SangKwun to a hanbok-maker and all of us picked out the fabrics, colors, and styles we want. We probably won't get them for another month or so, but I have to admit that I'm e.x.c.i.t.e.d. These hanboks are beautiful.

It's really overwhelming trying to choose - there are so many options.

Here's the hanbok-maker. And check out the samples behind her.

Mark was very sure that he wanted NO pink on his hanbok, so he and SangKwun ended ordering the exact same colors and very similar styles. The navy will be the pants, the cream is for the top and the light blue is the vest.

Emily and my hanboks may be somewhat similar too, but we chose a few different colors. If you can look at the picture sideways, that's Emily's design. And the guy's hanbok is almost exactly what SangKwun and Mark's will look like.

Then here are my colors. Unfortunately, I don't have the style picture, but it won't be that much different from Emily's. My skirt is going to be the pink color, and the top is white with a navy blue vest to match Mark's.

Pretty exciting stuff, right? I have an amazing video of Mark getting measured that I am in the process of uploading and will post shortly. :)

Wedding bells

K: Sorry about my blog's hibernation, but haven't had any new news lately to share. BUT, just when I had gotten used to saying... "No, nothing new about Korea," I got a new email from Sang Kwan. I emailed him earlier this weekend to check in and to wish him a happy Korean new year. In the email, I also mentioned that Kevin is getting married in about a month.

Well, in his reply he said that since Kevin is getting married, I am probably expecting him to get married as well. (Maybe he did get that email awhile back when I asked if he had any marriage plans - haha.) Well, he said that he and Emily will get married when Mark and I are in Korea for a year and hoped I would be a part of it. How cool is that! And how funny is it that I could have both my brothers getting married within a year of each other!

Sang Kwan also mentioned that he had spent the Korean new year with family (my birth father has a ton of brothers and sisters, apparently). He hadn't seen them in 4 years, so they were able to catch up. He said they talked a lot about childhood, which is kind of interesting.

He also mentioned that he has more news to share and will email soon... I'll keep you posted!